Chapter 3 - White Flowers in Gabriel’s Name
Gabriel broke the lock with a steel fire bar from the utility room.
The door opened inward.
The smell hit him first.
Damp stone.
Sweat.
Fear.
Claire Mercer sat against the far wall.
She looked thinner than her photograph.
Her dark-blonde hair was tangled around her pale face.
A chain ran from an ankle cuff to a metal ring in the floor.
Gabriel’s anger became almost calm.
That was how people who knew him well recognized when he was most dangerous.
“Who did this?”
Claire tried to stand.
She couldn’t.
“Lily.”
“She’s safe.”
Claire stared at him.
“You brought her here?”
“She came to me.”
Claire’s expression became terrified.
“You have to get her out.”
“Why?”
“Because this house isn’t safe.”
Gabriel crouched beside the ankle restraint.
“Neither are you.”
He examined the mechanism.
A key lock.
Not old.
Recently installed.
“Who brought you here?”
Claire shook her head.
“I didn’t see.”
“You were unconscious?”
“They grabbed me in my apartment garage.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did they want?”
“They kept asking where I put the records.”
“What records?”
Claire looked at him.
“The ones proving Evelyn didn’t die when you were told.”
Gabriel went still.
He could hear Lily upstairs moving somewhere beyond the ceiling.
“Say that again.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“Evelyn survived the crash.”
Gabriel’s throat tightened.
“For how long?”
Claire opened her eyes.
“At least nine months.”
Gabriel stood abruptly.
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
“I buried her.”
“No.”
His voice became sharp.
“I touched her hand.”
“You touched a body made to look convincing enough for a grieving husband who had been told not to look closely.”
Gabriel backed away.
He thought of his father.
His mother.
Dr. Reese.
The closed coffin.
“No.”
Claire continued carefully.
“Your father arranged it.”
Gabriel looked at her.
The words were almost absurd.
“My father loved Evelyn.”
“He loved control more.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
“Why?”
Claire stared toward the door.
“Get me upstairs first.”
He broke the chain attachment using bolt cutters.
Then carried Claire up the staircase.
Lily was waiting.
When she saw her mother, she screamed.
“Mom!”
Claire collapsed into her arms.
Gabriel turned away.
He had expected answers.
Instead, watching them hold each other made him understand how enormous the truth might become.
He called a private physician he trusted personally.
Not the family doctor.
Not anyone connected to his father.
Dr. Maya Trent arrived forty minutes later.
Dehydration.
Bruising.
A mild infection.
But Claire would recover.
Gabriel moved them both into a secured sitting room.
Then he disconnected the mansion security system from Marcus’s control.
Marcus noticed immediately.
He appeared in the doorway.
“Problem?”
Gabriel studied him.
“Maintenance.”
“I can fix it.”
“I already have.”
Marcus glanced toward the closed room.
“Who else is here?”
Gabriel smiled slightly.
“Why?”
“Security protocol.”
“I’ll handle security tonight.”
For the first time in twelve years, Marcus looked offended.
Gabriel didn’t care.
When he returned to Claire, she had gathered herself.
Lily sat beside her.
Gabriel placed Evelyn’s photograph on the table.
“Start at the beginning.”
Claire looked at Lily.
“I wanted to tell you when you were older.”
“I’m almost seventeen.”
“I know.”
“Mom.”
Claire’s eyes filled.
“I was scared.”
Gabriel interrupted.
“Who was the baby?”
Claire looked at him.
Then at Lily.
The silence answered before she did.
Lily slowly stood.
“No.”
Claire reached toward her.
“Sweetheart—”
“No.”
Gabriel felt the room close around him.
Claire whispered, “The baby was you.”
Lily stared at the photograph.
Evelyn holding a newborn.
Her birth date.
October seventeenth.
“No,” Lily said again.
Gabriel could barely speak.
“Was Evelyn her mother?”
Claire nodded.
Lily covered her mouth.
Gabriel turned toward the window.
He needed physical distance from the answer.
Evelyn had given birth.
Evelyn had a daughter.
And Gabriel had spent seventeen years believing she was dead.
“Who was the father?” he asked.
Claire did not answer.
Gabriel turned.
“Claire.”
“I don’t know for certain.”
“But you have an idea.”
“Yes.”
Lily looked between them.
“Is it him?”
Claire began crying.
“I don’t know.”
Gabriel’s chest tightened.
“Explain.”
Claire had been a nurse at St. Catherine’s in 2009.
Not in Evelyn’s department.
But she had been working the night a heavily guarded patient was quietly transferred to an unused maternity room.
The chart identified the patient as Elise Warren.
Claire noticed immediately that the photograph attached to the chart didn’t match the woman.
Then she heard two administrators talking.
The real name was Evelyn Kane.
Gabriel interrupted.
“Why would Evelyn be in maternity?”
Claire looked at Lily.
“She was pregnant.”
“That’s impossible.”
“She had hidden it.”
“From me?”
Claire nodded.
“Why?”
“I only learned pieces later.”
According to Claire, Evelyn had discovered financial crimes involving Gabriel’s father, Victor Kane.
Shell companies.
Bribes.
Illegal property transfers.
More disturbing, Evelyn had learned Victor had been manipulating Gabriel’s business decisions and secretly moving assets through foundations in Gabriel’s name.
Evelyn planned to expose him.
The car crash occurred three days before she intended to meet federal investigators.
Gabriel’s father controlled what happened afterward.
Evelyn survived.
Seriously injured but alive.
Then Victor announced her death.
“Why keep her alive?” Gabriel asked.
“Because she was pregnant.”
Lily looked down.
Gabriel’s voice was quiet.
“Did my father know who the baby belonged to?”
“I think that’s what he was trying to determine.”
Gabriel felt sick.
“Was Evelyn unfaithful?”
Claire hesitated.
“I never heard her say that.”
“Then why question paternity?”
“Because Victor wanted leverage.”
Claire explained that Gabriel and Evelyn had briefly separated five months before the crash.
Gabriel remembered.
Three weeks.
A stupid argument.
They had reconciled.
If Evelyn became pregnant around that time, dates might have created uncertainty.
“But she would have told me,” Gabriel said.
Claire’s expression softened.
“Maybe she was trying to.”
Gabriel remembered the week before the crash.
Evelyn had repeatedly asked him to come home early.
Gabriel had been negotiating an acquisition.
He kept saying tomorrow.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow.
Warning signs he had seen.
And chosen not to question.
His stomach tightened.
“What happened after Lily was born?”
Claire’s face became haunted.
“Evelyn begged me to take her.”
“Why you?”
“I was the only nurse who had shown her kindness.”
Claire described the night.
Evelyn knew Victor intended to separate her from the baby.
She believed he would eventually use the child to control Gabriel.
She gave Claire a bracelet.
A photograph.
And a letter.
“Where’s the letter?”
Claire looked at Gabriel.
“Hidden.”
“Where?”
“That’s what the people who kidnapped me wanted.”
“Do you still have it?”
“Yes.”
Lily whispered, “What happened to Evelyn?”
Claire’s hands trembled.
“I don’t know.”
“You said she lived nine months.”
“I saw her one more time.”
Gabriel leaned forward.
“When?”
“June 2010.”
“Where?”
“Here.”
Gabriel froze.
“In this mansion?”
Claire nodded.
“The room beneath the west wing.”
Gabriel looked toward the floor.
“No.”
“She was imprisoned here.”
The words were worse than death.
His wife.
Alive.
Beneath the same roof where Gabriel had slept.
Claire continued.
“Your father told everyone you were traveling. Evelyn thought you knew she was alive.”
Gabriel closed his eyes.
“She thought I abandoned her.”
“I think so.”
Lily cried silently.
Gabriel felt something inside him crack.
Seventeen years of grief suddenly became seventeen years of betrayal.
“Then what?”
“One night she disappeared.”
“Who took her?”
“I never found out.”
“Dead?”
“I don’t know.”
Gabriel opened his eyes.
“Who sent Lily the flowers?”
Claire shook her head.
“I thought you did at first.”
“I didn’t.”
“Then someone else knows.”
A sound came from the hallway.
Gabriel looked toward the door.
Footsteps.
Slow.
He opened it.
No one.
But on the floor outside sat a bouquet of white roses.
Fresh.
Lily gasped.
Claire went pale.
Gabriel crouched beside the bouquet.
A card had been tucked between the stems.
He removed it.
Two words.
STOP DIGGING.
Gabriel looked down the empty corridor.
Someone had entered the secured section of the mansion.
Someone who knew Claire had been found.
Someone who knew exactly where they were.
He turned the card over.
There was another message.
Ask Marcus what happened on June 8, 2010.
Gabriel lifted his eyes.
At the far end of the hallway, Marcus Vale stood watching him.
May you like
And for the first time in twelve years, Marcus did not pretend he hadn’t been caught.
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